Full Text of the Excerpt

I. BEVERLY LAKE:

...Incidentally, before I came to teach, well, I mean, before I ran for office, the college moved to Winston Salem. I did not want to go because my home was here and my roots were here. So I didn't go. I went to Washington and had my second tour of duty as a Federal employee. That was in 1950, and as you will recall, the Korean War had broken out. There was a great deal of anxiety that it might become a third World War. And if so, there would be a need for a return to rationing of vital materials. So the Government asked me to come to Washington and assist. I don't mean to head up the program but to assist, in drafting rationing regulations which I did for a year. I was up there through the year 1950. While I was there, General MacArthur came back with his famous speech in Congress when Truman fired him. Anyhow, that was a pretty exciting event. While I was working one morning in the office in Washington, I had phone call from Mr. Harry McMullan, the great Attorney General of North Carolina. Mr. McMullan invited me to come back to North Carolina as an Assistant Attorney General, they now call it Deputy Attorney General. Once more, I decided that a smaller salary was a small contribution to make in order to return to North Carolina. I've always thought that Washington is the most beautiful city I've ever known, especially when you look at it from the window of a south bound plane.

CHARLES DUNN:

Yes sir.

I. BEVERLY LAKE:

But it's not a very nice place to live, and it's worse now than it was then, by virtue of the Supreme Court decision. Anyhow, I think I've skipped over the fact that, well, no--after I came back and became Deputy Attorney General of North Carolina, the Supreme Court handed down the School Segregation Decision, outlawing separate schools for white and Negro children.